acrossasiaminoro00chiluoft

298 ACROSS ASIA MINOR ON FOOT
Though his instruments might not be promising he
made up for all shortcomings by skill. The light
musical tinklinofs, the intricate variations of time
and rhythm that he produced—slow with one hand,
rapid with the other, both independent yet also interdependent—seemed
impossible fron) the glasses, and
kept his listeners spellbound. Performing thus while
sitting cross-legged on the raised staging with comically
twisted face and eyes to roof, he sang an interminable
sonof whose refrain was about the rain and
wind on the road to Diarbekr. He looked like a
Buddhist idol, and what with apt and topical song
and cunning tinkle of oflass, so pleased his hearers
that thereafter when not sleeping he was always
being urged to sing.
During the evening a disturbance, highly characteristic
of the country, broke out among the
Greeks and Armenians who were still crouching and
jostling each other round the stove. An Armenian
who suddenly found himself thrust aside
violently pushed off the offender, who was a Greek.
In an instant the quarrel ceased to be one of individuals,
and became one of antagonistic races.
Greek and Armenian hate the Turk as oppressor,
but they hate each other also with the rancorous
hatred of jealous equals. So now all the Greeks in
the room blazed into fury, in their own more dour
way the Armenians did likewise, and the figures near
the stove soon became a mass of whirling arms and
legs and writhing half-naked bodies, from which arose
a noise as if from animals rather than men. The
situation was one in which the barman could safely
prove his physical value to his master, and perhaps
make up for shortcomings against the Circassians ; so
he set about the work in earnest, like one seizing his
opportunity, and even enjoying it. Presently other
Moslems joined him, and between khan-keeipeY and
barman and friends, some of the fighting figures were
dragged apart, and the trouble subsided almost as
quickly as it had begun.